Blog

Appraisal Of The LTTE In Mid-1999: Mark Corcoran & The ABC

In mid-year 1999 during the ongoing Eelam War III, Mark Corcoran of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) visited Sri Lanka and composed three film documentaries of fascinating breadth. They were:

I have yet to see the first and third of these film documentaries, but find the topics chosen very much in my line of interest. It so happened that I watched TIGERS AT THE GATE in Adelaide then.[1] I then had the temerity to send a Letter to the ABC and Corcoran with some criticisms of the coverage — deploying an University of Adelaide letterhead so as to secure attention. This exercise had completely slipped my mind till I came across my typescript and Mark Corcoran’s reply (dated 5th July) among my manuscripts when indulging in some archival sorting. In reproducing my Memo and placing this exchange within the inter-net ‘bar,’ I stress that my memories of the documentary NOW are zilch and that i have not been able to study it again. However, I suspect that it would be very useful for analysts to revisit this documentary.

Pirapaharan in India in the 1980s

My criticisms were qualified charges and mostly directed towards sins of omission relating to the recent past within the general chargethat news reports on Sri Lankan politics ware overly “presentist” — that is, focusing on the here and now in ways that obscured the immediate historical processes moulding the here and now. My memorandum is reproduced below so that readers can assess it themselves,

Standing now in 2017, let me stress that I was profoundly wrong on some issues; for instance, in stating that the LTTE had little chance of recapturing the Jaffna Peninsula. In fact, the Tigers came close to achieving that feat in April-May 2009 and the Army Generals Sarath Fonseka and Janaka Perera even advocated the evacuation of troops from that arena.[2] This error of judgement was a measure of my office-desk background and my ignorance of military affairs THEN.[3]

THE GREATER ERROR ON MY PART, HOWEVER, WAS IN READING PIRAPĀHARAN AND THE LTTE. IN CONTRAST, CORCORAN HAD RESIDED IN THE PENINSULA FOR A FEW WEEKS, MET TAMIL PEOPLE AND DECIPHERED THE TIGER PHILOSOPHY AND OBJECTIVES. THIS IS MADE EXPLICIT IN THE BLURB WHICH INTRODUCES THE FILM SRI LANKA: TIGERS AT THE GATE: “THE TRUTH IS A POLITICAL SOLUTION IS AS IMPOSSIBLE AS A MILITARY BREAKTHROUGHBECAUSE FOR THE (TAMIL) TIGERS IT’S ALL OR NOTHING — A HOMELAND OR GLORIOUS DEATH.” MARK CORCORAN.

Corcoran was on the mark here (pun intended). Michael Roberts and the well-meaning peacenik” moderate commentators in Colombo and elsewhere were in cloud-cuckoo land.[4] They had not grasped the steely-determination of the Tiger talaivar (supremo), his confidence in victory and the degree of ruthlessness with which he was proceeding to pursue his quest.

With the advantage of hindsight, we know NOW that Pirapāharan was continuing his programme of elimination Tamil moderate leaders with an eye on undermining the programme of constitutional reform initiated by President Chandrika Kumaratunga with Neelan Tiruchelvam as key advisor and mediator. Tiruchelvam was assassinated on 30th July 1999, a month after the ABC film – adding yet another to the list of recent killings of moderate Tamil politicians.[5]

When the Presidential Elections occurred later that year, Pirapāharan was, again, true to form. A suicide killer targeted Chandrika Kumaratunga in late December 1999 (ironically a leader whose accession to power in 1994 had been facilitated by the assassination of Gamini Dissanayake on 24th October 1994)[6]and injured her severely in the process of decimating others around her at a rally.[7]

These measures turned the moderate Tamil politicians into the lap-dogs of the LTTE.The TULF became the Tamil National Alliance and the Pongu Thamil pageants of the early 2000s –with their Hitleresque salute –revealed their adoption of the LTTE’s fascist theology.

When Pirapāharan and the LTTE accepted a ceasefire in 2001/02, it was a political move towards building up their international standing and a respite intended to recuperate their military resources. Assisted by the well-meaning but politically naïve Norwegians, they secured recognition as de facto state between 2002 and 2005, while yet being described as “terrorists” in some quarters.

When I visited Kilinochchi with some Tamil friends in late November 2004 and attended the annual Maaveerar Nal homage-cum-celebration of 27th November, I found three of the local officials, including Thiru Master,[8] complaining about the GSL violations” and spoiling for war. The crunch point came when I received reliable information[9] in December 2004 that Ramesh, the Tiger propaganda chief to whom I had been introduced,[10] was in the process of gearing the LTTE for the resumption of war.[11] The impact of the tsunami on 26th December merely dented that goal — delaying the LTTE’s return to war by an year or so.

It was from then that I abandoned my naïve peacenik view of the political circumstances facing us Sri Lankans. It dawned on me then that we faced a situation that was a Hobson’s Choice. Devolution was not feasible. At some point in the early 2000s, moreover, Dayan Jayatilleka had made the simple, but acute, point that one cannot have a federal system where one of the devolved units has an army, navy and air force. Now, in late 2004 and thereafter, that appraisal took firm root in my mind.

But it took much longer for me to comprehend the battle theatre situation and to overcome, albeit partially, my bourgeois drawing room background in deciphering the “lineaments” of the ongoing warfare. That is another story. Here, I eat humble pie and bow to Corcoran’s deep insight on a major issue. As the ABC prospectus asserted: “for the (Tamil) Tigers it’s all or nothing — a homeland or glorious death.”

Synopsis: “The truth is a political solution is as impossible as a military breakthrough because for the (Tamil) Tigers it’s all or nothing – a homeland or glorious death.” ….. Mark Corcoran

It’s the focal point of Sri Lanka’s epic civil war – the city of Jaffna on the island nation’s northern tip. For the Sri Lankan government it’s a glittering prize – the capital of the Tamil heartland captured from the rebel Tigers. Government forces proffer Jaffna as a model of their ascendancy in the north. In reality, it’s a hellhole starved of vital medicines and services and offering little at all for locals “except destitution and danger”. The army claims it’s cleansed Jaffna of insurgents but 600 Tigers operate underground and an awesome guerilla force has the city surrounded and cut off from the rest of the country. Foreign Correspondent’s Mark Corcoran makes the perilous journey into Jaffna aboard a Red Cross hospital ship “lit up like a Christmas tree” to avoid mistaken identity and attack. Mark finds an army demoralised by heavy losses in a recent routing in Tiger territory and top brass desperately applying spin to their hopeless cause. He meets battle weary Tamils making their way back to Jaffna from Tiger strongholds and uncovers startling evidence of atrocities – breaking army lines to film at two mass graves outside town.

B = ROBERTS to Director, ABC … 1 July 1999

Director, Foreign Correspondent, ABC Television

Dear Madam/Sir,

I am taking the liberty of commenting on your coverage of “Jaffna” in the programme on Tuesday 29th June under Jennifer Byrne’s (?) and Mark Corcoran’s direction. I note here that I am Sri Lankan, albeit not Tamil or Sinhalese. And also send a text, a kind of personal statement and protest I drafted in the 1980s as one indication of my position on the ethnic conflict.

I found the programme instructive and was especially pleased that you had a map at the outset though I think it would have been wise to dwell on the map for longer. The principal defects in the presentation were (1) inadequate attention to the time-dimensions; and (2) sins of omission rather than commission, shortcomings that had a bearing on what was shown and said in ways that meant the presentation became lopsided IN SOME MEASURE. In other words despite the appearance of even-handedness, there was, no doubt unintentionally, a leaning towards the LTTE side. This effect would have been compounded in the reception of the story by less perceptive viewers who did not trouble to read between your lines-plus-pictures and re-evaluate your weightages.

Let me elaborate by noting some of the shortcomings.

The impression was created that some Tamil “collaborators” had been killed by land mines. In fact, one of them, the lady mayor of Jaffna, was gunned down as an assassination job. That the LTTE see her as a “collaborator” is undoubted, but she was a member of the TULF. And most TULF are Eelamists and Tamil nationalists. Like your presenters I never use government labels for the LTTE and avoid the term “terrorists”, so I must also not use the LTTE propaganda labels. You did. Double standards.

No attempt was made to indicate the division in the Tamil political (and fighting ranks). No reference to the `TELO, PLOTE and ENDP forces. Nor that they were “collaborators” now because they were decimated by the Tigers between 1986 and 1991 — the time dimension.

No indication of LTTE killings and “atrocities,” from killings of Sinhalese and Muslim villagers in the border areas to that of about 700 to 900 policemen who surrendered on orders when fighting was renewed in 1991 (and the State’s army did commit wholesale atrocities — in retaliation one presumes — after that in the Eastern Province).

It is true that about 20,000 state soldiers — give or take 5000 either way — have deserted. But that figure is over a period of 10 to 12 years. Time dimension missing once again. Still a very significant figure of course. AND both sides are facing severe manpower problems now according to a Tamil speaking Indian journalist I met in Colombo last month. The latest news (how reliable?) is that the LTTE are instituting 100 percent conscription in the Vanni. And if I was in their position I too would have to do so.

Pictures of young boys, said to be 12 year olds, fetching and carrying people across the lagoon —in ways that implied terrible pressures on the Tamil people of the peninsula. Latter yes, but the illustration is a poor one. Have you been to fishing –villages down south? And villages in general? Youthful labour is not uncommon. And seated comfortably in our lounges can we deny parents/single parents (Tamil or Sinhalese) with several kids the right to send their eldest into the work force to add to the pot?

And if the pressures on the people in the Jaffna Peninsula are terrible-terrible, why are the forced migrants (and it is to your credit that you indicated the forced shift in 1996) coming back in a steady trickle? Worse situation in the LTTE controlled Vanni areas presumably. But that is the price of liberation struggle. Ask the Kurds: they will tell you what it takes. And they know one cannot have it both ways.

Enough, I trust, to argue my case against ABC. One of the strengths of reportage of the type your programme presented is its “being there,” talking to the guys-on-the-spot, and the details thus elicited. There were, nevertheless, clear contradictions in the claims presented by Dixon, the UN chap; together with some excess, because] the danger of the LTTE sweeping back into Jaffna town (as distinct from disrupting “normalcy”) is remote at present.

One of the shortcomings in such programmes is that the makers flit from subject to subject as part of their career. There is some background research to make up for this, but is it enough? I suspect the inadequacy of the latter is what enforces a “presentist” emphasis on such programmes. The here-and-now is what counts. The time dimension, as well as the shifts in the cut-and-thrust of hostile action by contending parties, are not sorted out.Have your researchers read the monthly Tamil Times over the past years? and the UTHR reviews of events, inclusive of atrocities, on all sides? And asked why Hoole, Sritharan and Company are targets for the LTTE?

Yours Sincerely, Michael Roberts

C = MARK CORCORAN to ROBERTS, 5 July 1999

Subject: Comments re; Foreign Correspondent.

Date: Mon., 05 Jul 1999 15:55:25 +1000

From: <foreign@your.abc.net.au>

To: mroberts@camtech.net.au

Dear Mr. Roberts,

Thank you for your interesting comments regarding our report “Tigers at the Gate”.

We are in the business of making current affairs television. I’m sure if we were producing a five part documentary series or were writing a thesis we may have been able to include some of the detail mentioned in your letter.

Omission does not equate to ignorance. We were well aware of the points you have raised and by virtue of the medium had to par down the detail. However I do not accept your assertion that this led to distortions or inaccuracies.

Perhaps you missed the point. The program was not intended as a geopolitical analysis of the entire Sri Lanka conflict, but as an observation of life in Jaffna during the time of our visit in late April 1999.

We received dozens of phone calls, faxes and e-mails following the broadcast of this report – from all ethnic groups involved, aid groups and former diplomats – many of them with a specialised knowledge of this conflict. All were complimentary of the report.

Udagampola, P. 2010 “Wherever in This World I Live, Achieving Tamil Eelam is My Conviction”. Long Distance Nationalism among Second Generation Sri Lankan Tamils in Toronto,” History Dissertation, Columbia University.

[1] Way back in the 1950s I used to surf –Sri Lankan style with wooden boards – at Closenburg in Galle bay…. And by the age of 16 could body-surf without a board in the face of medium size waves [not big rollers]. I have dabbled in surfing in Australia till recent times.

[3] This shortcoming has only been partially redressed. The process –inevitably a vicarious one –began when I was in Sri Lank in May-June 2009 and saw footage of battles and had discussions with Muralidhar Reddy. It grew after I reacted strongly to Rohan Gunaratna’s British Council talk in 2011 which presented a gross underestimate of Tamil civilian casualties. Citizen Silva’s treatise on the “Numbers Game”(2013) helped me greatly and I have used maps and photographs as means of deepening my awareness

[4] It would be useful for some scholars to study the output of local journalists and academics in 1998-2000 to assess their readings of the political cum military situation then.

[7] “The blast claimed the lives of 36 people, including Kumaratunga’s driver, two bodyguards, the senior Deputy Inspector General of Police and the bomber. Over a hundred were injured including three cabinet ministers—G.L. Peiris, Kingsley Wickramaratna and Alavi Moulana,” ….…………………..………………..[Wije Dias in https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1999/12/blst-d21.html].

[8] Thiru Master was an English teacher who had joined the exodus to the Vanni in 1995 –no doubt because he was among the circle of people whom Pirapaharan consulted. In any event he was important enough to be one of the several speakers at the inauguration of the LTTE’s media centre on 26th January 2004 (with Thamil Chelvam as chief speaker). A Tamil beside me indicated that Thiru Master referred to the Japanese kamikaze during his talk. For that reason, I decided to visit him that Friday afternoon and was cordially received by him and his wife.

[10] I had a half-hour chat with Ramesh on the verandah of his office-house on Sunday 28th November. Among other gains, I received a large poster with images and bio-data on all the pre-1983 Tigers who were viewed as maaveerar. This is reproduced in Roberts, Tamil Person and State. Pictorial, (2014).

[11] The ravages of the tsunami on 26th December 2004, especially on the Sea Tigers, delayed the Tiger programme. If not for the tsunami, the LTTE would have launched their war at some point in 2005.

Latest comments

Native Vedda/August 8, 2017

2

0

Michael Roberts
–
“Standing now in 2017, let me stress that I was profoundly wrong on some issues; for instance, in stating that the LTTE had little chance of recapturing the Jaffna Peninsula. In fact, the Tigers came close to achieving that feat in April-May 2009 “
–
It is unusually brave for a Sri Lankan born academic to own up mistakes. I respect you.

I believe it was in April 2000 LTTE overran Elephant Pass Army came. LTTE was prevented from entering into Jaffna proper by Hindian’s according to Balasingam, who received a good bollocking from them. VP was concerned IPKF Mark II might arrive and enter into fresh war. Some say LTTE had already ran out of arms and ammunition to continue their roll back strategy, and its cadres were tired of relentless fighting during the previous 30 days.

/

Jimsofty./August 8, 2017

0

0

Well discussed article and referencs included. I thinbk, LTTE started the war by destroying a bus, in Dambulla, carrying Sailors on vacation, closing the Mail – Aru waterway stopping water to farmers etc., but, it did not work. I thin the major problem was after a long delay, LTTE was not that daring to face on-slaught. I read so many artices here by Tamils, said to be well educated. by, those are mostly new theories and no references included. In that sense this is a good article. thank you for counter acting LTTE propaganda. I say that, most western programs were influenced by well planned LTTE propaganda unit. My guess is if LTTE was also prepared, the number of Tamil deaths would have been far higher.

/

Nathan/August 8, 2017

0

0

…. elimination (of) Tamil moderate leaders with an eye on undermining the programme of constitutional reform initiated by President Kumaratunga with Neelan Tiruchelvam as key advisor and mediator.
*
I have always had misgivings about the description ‘moderate leaders’. How much influence could Neelan have exerted as advisor to Chandrika on moderating her constitutional reform agenda.
*
I recall Margaret Thatcher being cynical of the politics of Brian Mulroney, the Prime Minister of Canada. Mulroney was a Progressive Conservative; Thatcher was a pure Conservative, no adjective! According to Thatcher there was nothing progressive in being a Progressive Conservative. In a way Thatcher was right!
*
I do not believe that there was ever a period in SL politics when a moderate Tamil leader managed to have influence of any kind in the political outcome of the nation. The Tamil leaders, moderate or otherwise, were unable to bring about even a modicum of change in the outlook of Sinhalese politicians.
*
… … !

/

Pelpola/August 8, 2017

2

0

You say in 2009; I believe that was a typo. By 2009 TIGERS were very much on the ropes. It was during incompetent CBK’s regime that they almost took Jaffna and Sarath Fonseka as Jaffna commander was worried. CBK personally called Pakistan, Israel and Czech Republic. Czech’s sold the MBRLs on credit and airlifted them. CBK and Anuruddha Ratwatte stood strong. India had even offered ships to evacuate troops. The Game changer were the MBRLs the modern version of the famous Katyusha Rockets that Hitler called “Stalin’s organs”. They were inducted into the battlefield straight away and devastated Tigers; thus Jaffna was saved. Get that side right too Michael.

/

Pelpola/August 8, 2017

3

0

Whatever people say about CBK and Anuruddha, it was CBK who called Ehud Barak too and Pakistan also airlifted the MBRLs. After they were inducted, they became the best and primary offensive Artillery system for SLA. Facts are facts.

/

Native Vedda/August 9, 2017

1

0

Pelpola

“After they were inducted, they became the best and primary offensive Artillery system for SLA. Facts are facts”
–
Are you a merchant of death indulging in killing business?
–
According to several eye witnesses, hundred of thousands of innocent people had been killed by the best and primary offensive Artillery system.
–
I suppose you have no qualm killing so many innocent civilians by an efficient killing machine.

/

K.Pillai/August 8, 2017

0

1

Michael
One of the documentaries by Mark Corcoran of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) was
“Sri Lanka. A Close Encounter with Arthur C. Clarke …. 6 June 1999”
You say that it was of “fascinating breadth” (your own personal oogy woogy words!). Did it say why Arthur C Clark chose to live in Ceylon? Is the reason a fourth dimension?
Your “Appraisal Of The LTTE In Mid-1999: Mark Corcoran & The ABC” takes us no where. Why not research on “Why the war ever took place?”. This is the fourth dimension.
The same dimension that brought the end of Vietnam war, the dismantling of apartheid. This is the dimension that is the grievance of Palastine. This caused the Iraq and Libyan tragedy. This will cause further tragedies.
PS: I am an unashamed layman hence could not digest your article but I have lots of commonsense.

/

Leave A Comment

Comments should not exceed 300 words. Embedding external links and writing in capital letters are discouraged. Commenting is automatically shut off on articles after 10 days and approval may take up to 24 hours. Please read our Comments Policy for further details.
Your email address will not be published.